Donald Trump stirs controversy saying Africans and other migrants are poisoning the US

FORMER US president Donald Trump has started a potentially divisive argument at the launch of his presidential campaign in New Hampshire by declaring that that immigrants are poisoning the blood of the country.

Stressing that immigrants from Africa, Asia and from other parts of the world were flooding the US, he said he feared this would lead to crime and terrorism being on the rise. Mr Trump told the crowd on Saturday that immigrants from all over the world are pouring into the country, reiterating a phrase CNN reported he used previously that sparked an outcry from the Anti-Defamation League.

In October Mr Trump had said: “Nobody has ever seen anything like we’re witnessing right now. It is a very sad thing for our country. It’s poisoning the blood of our country. It’s so bad, and people are coming in with disease. People are coming in with every possible thing that you could have."

Reiterating this on Saturday, he added:  “We got a lot of work to do. They’re poisoning the blood of our country. That’s what they’ve done.

“They poison mental institutions and prisons all over the world, not just in South America but all over the world. They’re coming into our country, from Africa, from Asia, all over the world."

In 2018, news reports emerged that Mr Trump called Haiti, El Salvador and African nations shithole countries in a meeting with Congressional leaders about immigration policy in the White House. He allegedly went ahead to say he preferred immigrants from Norway and Asia as they helped America economically.

He later denied referring to African nations as shithole countries but said that he used tough words to describe them. Following Mr Trump’s comments, the Biden campaign released a statement yesterday criticising the ex-president’s remarks.

It read: “Donald Trump channelled his role models as he parroted Adolf Hitler, praised Kim Jong Un and quoted Vladimir Putin while running for president on a promise to rule as a dictator and threaten American democracy. Trump is not shying away from his plan to lock up millions of people into detention camps and continues to lie about that time when Joe Biden obliterated him by over 7m votes three years ago.”

One of Mr Trump’s rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, Chris Christie, also called his remarks disgusting. He went on to criticise fellow Republican rival Nikki Haley for saying Trump was fit to be president.

Mr Christie added: “He’s disgusting, and what he’s doing is dog-whistle to Americans who feel absolutely under stress and strained from the economy and from the conflicts around the world and he’s dog-whistling to blame it on people from areas that don’t look like us. The other problem with this is the Republicans who are saying this is OK.”